You've completely missed the point. Your own reply answers your question: "Launching from a saved file on a desktop will not work". That is the complaint this thread (and others) is about. And it's not even technically a problem like a bug or network issue; it's straight up sabotage by Broadcastify.
So, protecting our business from theft is straight up sabotage by us? You're actually saying we're cutting our nose off to spite our face? 🆗 :roll:
So a core feature that thousands of frequent and dedicated users (including feed providers) have been using for nearly 15 years deserves to get yanked because a handful (a dozen?) of random small-time devs made unofficial players? There are so many ways that this minor borderline non-issue could have been dealt with that didn't involve hobbling the service, such as IP- or user-based auth. But no, let's just nuke the whole thing and essentially say "deal with it" when people inevitably and immediately complain, right?
IP or user-based authentication would cause an
enormous support problem - far greater than requiring a set of power users to now take a small insignificant workflow change to listen to the feeds.
Furthermore, those "random small-time devs" have been making
hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising revenue off of the streams without ever sharing that revenue back to Broadcastify, like the rest of the licensed application developer community does. It's not pocket change - it is a significant theft of lost revenue and resources from our business.
Trust me, I've been doing this for a while, and we don't make changes lightly without significant thought into how we approach things.
Like we've said, this isn't worth the hassle. It shouldn't be surprising when a site decides to pull things like this and starts to lose paid and free users.
Sorry, but business has never been better, and the platform for 99.9% of everyone involved has been a great success and is only getting better.
I realize you are upset, but you are just going to have to go with our workflow if you want to participate here. I'm not trying to come across as a jerk, but when you accuse us of sabotaging our own platform, then sometimes I just have to step in and tell you to sit back, go with the new flow and the way things are now, or vote with your feet.
PS: The changes are working exactly as intended. And while we've had some complaints that folks can no longer directly link to feeds directly from their own players indefinitely, the vast majority understand our perspective and update their listening workflow accordingly when we explain the reasoning.
You on the other hand.... well... :roll: